Wai Chu Xiao Xin
Sam's yearning for some food from his childhood. Chinatown's been quiet for months. Perhaps a little too quiet. Cast * Sam Yao * Janine De Luca Plot Chinatown! A recent haul of woks by one of the other runners led Sam to decide that cooking for everyone would be a nice Halloween treat. Mannequin Shop As you run through the deserted, largely untouched streets of Chinatown, Sam continues to reminisce about his upbringing. Jiang-Shi Sam tells you the story of the Jiang-Shi, a version of a zombie from Chinese folklore. Reanimated, but still stiff corpses, they jump after their prey in order to steal their Chi. Jiang-Shi! Sam notices a group of people outside the shop you're in. All as one, they jump towards you and Sam recognises them for what they truly are: the Jiang-Shi! Rice The solution soon comes to Sam's mind: throw raw rice at them. With this in mind, you loop back to the shop to gather ammunition. Wedding! The effect is startling: the Jiang-Shi begin coughing up lungfuls of rice before dropping dead. Bao Having disposed of the last of the Jiang-Shi, you head back to Abel. Sam complains about having some rice stuck in his mouth. Jumping As you approach Abel, Janine gets in touch for a debriefing. She expresses concern about Sam's health, before asking why you and he are jumping. Transcript SAM YAO: Aw man, Five! You are too good to me, seriously! Janine told me she had you off doing some mission to pick up Halloween masks or something. laughs Yeah, like people want masks as much as they want delicious Chinese food. Now, I know it’s a bit crazy – yeah, we’re turning the corner here – yeah, I know it is, but you know how you sometimes just get a real hankering for some food you remember from your childhood? My grandma and granddad always used to come and visit England this time of year. Guess the flights were cheap. And my granddad was an amazing cook! Like, professional standard! He’d make these bao – do you know what they are? Ah, yeah, like, this amazing soft white bread buns, and inside there are these different fillings, like pork or vegetables or shrimp. Oh, once he did this thing with some leftover salmon and green onions and sesame. sighs Yeah, it was amazing. Anyway, you know Runner Seventeen found those woks in a lock-up garage? It just made me think, I mean, I mostly remember what he did. He’d cook, and I’d stand there and watch, and he’d tell me stories, and if I kept stealing the cooked pork before he put it in the bao, then the jiangshi would get me. So, basically, I think I can make some. But we need to get the right kind of flour and stuff. So, you and me, little visit to Chinatown! Sam, out on a mission – yes! SAM YAO: Man, this place is untouched! It’s incredible! I would have thought the looters would have been all over Chinatown. I guess no one thought to come out this way. But still, you’d have thought the zombies would have made a mess of it. They usually do. Not like they’re scared of anything. Okay, so I’ve got a map of the area from before the – well, you know, the total destruction of civilization. There are a few grocery shops to try. First one’s Chan’s Foods. It’s, uh, that way. laughs I am actually so excited about this. Like, I get to share a bit of my culture and stuff with people, like we’re in Sesame Street or something! Oh, wait, that reminds me, we need to get some sesame seeds. Okay, yeah, turn this way. So, yeah, I thought I could do a whole thing where I like, tell some of my granddad’s old stories, and maybe we can find some chrysanthemum tea. I miss that stuff. Not all the time, but like, sometimes. It feels like a long time since anyone offered me a sour plum. laughs I never lived in China or anything, but now I know I’ll probably never get to go there ever again, I… I guess I’m just homesick for the past or something. Hmm, looks like Chan’s must have closed down before the apocalypse. Everything seems sort of empty. Not going to find anything useful in a – what is that? Look at those just standing there like statues. Is it like, a mannequin shop? Chinese clothing shop, maybe? Okay, on to the next one. SAM YAO: Yeah, so, want to hear something crazy? There’s kind of a Chinese version of a zombie. I know, right? Well, like people say, all those legends were probably some kind of folk memory of something like this happening before. Or something. So, yeah, Chinese zombies. They’re called jiangshi. They come back from the dead, yeah, and they chase after the living, and try and steal your Chi from you, which I guess is life energy, so a bit like brains or something? The only thing is, laughs the only thing is, they’re still stiff corpses, like rigor mortis, so they have to – laughs so they have to – laughs ah, sorry – they have to jump, like – jump! So they jump after you, and jump along the road! Um, whenever my granddad’d tell me this, he’d try and make it all scary, but the jumping, man, that’s not scary! I think he was a bit offended that I always laughed at the jiangshi. He’d go, “Now you listen, young man. When a jiangshi is following you, you won’t find it so funny. Then you’ll wish you knew how to defeat them.” Hmm. I guess I do wish I’d listened now. Be a better story if I knew all the bits. Okay, okay, look, there are steaming baskets, we need those! Let’s get a few. I’ll put them in your backpack. zips, baskets rattle Okay, got some Nong Shim dried noodles. Seriously, these are so much better than Pot Noodle. Jack doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Chili oil, hoisin sauce… I am always amazing at how deceptively roomy your backpack is, you know. Like, it’s bigger on the inside. backpack Okay, that’s great. We just need some spices now. If we get a move on, we’ll be back in time to get some started for supper! Do you hear something? Huh, weird. Don’t see anyone. Might be a zom or two around, I guess. Anyway, come on. Spices, then let’s get home before it gets too dark. SAM YAO: Yup, great. Star anise, you go into my bag. hums So, yeah, my sister was the one who really kept up with her Chinese lessons. I mean, I can basically understand when people talk to me, but I can’t… Huh. Runner Five, I know the street lights are out, but do you see people out there? I mean, they’re standing really still, now I’m looking. Like statues or something, but I don’t think - there wasn’t anyone there when we… oh, crap. Five, tell me you saw that whole crowd of like, what, twenty people jump towards us? They can’t be, but it is – Five, they’ve cut us off, they’re – the jiangshi, they’re after us! We’ve got to get out of the way! Run, Five, run! SAM YAO: Crap, crap, crap! They’re gaining on us. They jump quickly! Okay, okay, uh, trying to remember everything I’ve ever heard about the jianshi right now. Okay, uh, they um… the spirit of the dead person has jumped back into the body. You have to get it out, you have to – oh, think, think! Um, you have to fight them with something made of peach tree wood! Yes! I don’t think peach trees even grow in the UK, ugh! But I think there are other ways. You have to, you have to – you can get the spirit to jump out of the body by spattering it with the blood of a black dog! So, that’s not very practical, and I’m not sure Runner Four’d every forgive me if I killed a dog. sighs No wonder! I never listened to my granddad. I think there was something else. Something else… oh, you want the spirit to get out of the body. laughs My granddad always used to say, “Watch out, the spirit might try and jump into someone else,” and I think he was just trying to scare me, to get me to eat my rice, I - eat my rice! Yes, yes, glutinous rice! Not the cooked stuff, the raw. You have to throw it at them, and they – oh, I don’t know, maybe it tempts the spirit out of the body to look at the rice? Maybe they don’t have rice in the afterlife? I don’t know. Aw, crap! They’ve cut off our only exit out of town. Rice it is. Back this way, to the grocery shop! SAM YAO: Right, got it! Rice! Alright, there are too many of them for us to fight off. Janine said she’d check in on us if we were out too long, but this area is known to be zom-free. Let’s just hope this works. Alright, take that! rice Dead spirit of one of the ancestors! Whom I venerate, obviously, but you should really go back to your own place instead of hanging around some dead bloke’s body! rice Hmm, don’t know if that’s - coughs It coughed up a lungful of rice, that’s weird. Weird, but not bad. Looks dead. Properly dead, not undead-walking-around-dead. laughs Hey, Five, wish all zombies were this easy to kill, right? Alright, you take this bag of rice, I’ll take that one, and we’re getting out of here. Let’s chuck rice like our lives depended on it! Or, like we’re celebrating two peoples’ decision to spend their life together. SAM YAO: rice cough Ah! I uh, I think that’s the last of them. Man, I can’t believe I actually remembered what my granddad taught me to do. It’s crazy! I never thought I listened properly to anything he said. I’m trying to remember though, there was something about those spirits going into other bodies – I’m not sure I remember it right, though. Or maybe Granddad was just joking, I mean, he knew what he was doing with the bao, but I think he liked to scare me. teeth I got a couple of grains of rice in my mouth from all that chucking them about. You okay, Five? Right. Home for us. Might still have time to make bao. JANINE DE LUCA: So you’re telling me that Chinatown isn’t the secure dead zone we thought it was? SAM YAO: Well, I mean, it depends what you mean by “dead zone”, yeah. teeth JANINE DE LUCA: Mister Yao? Are you quite well? SAM YAO: Yeah, I – there’s something in my mouth, here - sucks Just, just – Five and I… Where do the spirits go, Five? When they come out of the bodies? coughs JANINE DE LUCA: Mister Yao – Mister Yao? Why are you and Runner Five jumping?Category:Side Mission Category:Season Two